The Journey Itself Is Home
by bookEnd
Summary: It's the journey of a lifetime. Written for the Ian/Barbara ficathon on LiveJournal.


A/N: Many thanks to my excellent beta, Paranoid Seat!

* * *

You got to see a lot of…_interesting _people in this job, the conductor thought as he watched the strange couple scramble off the bus. Drunk, probably, he added to himself as they headed purposefully towards the pub. They didn't look the type. Appearances could be deceptive, he reminded himself as the bus moved off and the couple disappeared inside 'The Maxwell', the man holding the door open for his lady friend.

* * *

"So how much do we have left?" Ian asked, setting the two pints of beer and the change down on the table.

Barbara looked down at the two, somewhat uneven, piles. "Three Flanian pobble beads, seventy-six new pence, two Grozits, ten Euros, five Dollarpounds, fifty-credit chip, three florins, four half-crowns and six halfpennies. So five shillings, threepence."

"Five?"

Barbara passed Ian two of the four half-crowns. "Minted in 1968. I doubt the Doctor would approve."

"No," he laughed, "Remember that time when we had to break into the post office because he'd posted a letter with a perforated stamp a decade early?"

"Yes, and later he got involved in a drinking contest with the blacksmith!"

"_And _drank him under the table. I don't think that alcohol has any effect on him at all."

They both took a sip of their drinks. Remember, remember. Already, in this safe and comfortable environment, the memories were softening, blurring out the sharp edges. It could so easily be a dream, something made up to fill in the gap of two years. Abducted by aliens, how ridiculous.

"Do you remember…"

But the experiences, and the memories, could be shared. Far-fetched and unbelievable stories, told and retold, were remembered as reality. They had been reality, outside of the concepts of time and space that underpinned this reality perhaps, but reality, lived through, nonetheless.

"…when we were in that inn in 1605? The ale wasn't bad."

They both knew of the peculiarities of their situation that became a strange sort of normality; the alien races, cultures, that they had dealt with, co-operated with, fought with, fought against (and sometimes the most alien of these was on Earth); escape after escape after escape, until they finally managed to escape to here.

"And then I was kidnapped."

"I came after you!"

"Of course you did." Barbara smiled, not voicing what they had both already heard, and laid her hand on top of his. "And do you remember that bar on Ralady?"

"Oh yes, they were the ones who arrested me for drinking through my mouth."

There was a minute of comfortable silence.

"You know," Ian observed, setting his glass down again, "it almost seems as if we've spent two years on a pub crawl of the universe."

"I'm sure there was some saving the world in there," Barbara tried to protest, but he caught her eye and they were both laughing again, with the same exuberant joy as before, the sheer delight of being _home _and everything that word entailed.

* * *

Home. Earth, 1963. In the same way as their memories of travel, now they were home, were becoming less immediate, less real so had their memories of home while they travelled. The sensations, the emotions, the rituals and routines associated with their life in that time and place faded somewhat, fitted into the word 'home', the numbers 'nineteen sixty-three'.

Things like taps, running cold and lukewarm water. Peeling potatoes, grating cheese and cooking mince to make shepherd's pie rather than turning dials and pressing buttons on the food machine. Drinking in the pub, walking in the park. The scratch of pen on paper, cold feet and the sound of rain on the windowpane as they marked work together. Home, perfect in all its imperfections.

They were small against the universe, terrifyingly small, and these memories in those words were what kept them afloat. If they had let them go, abandoned the hope they held of returning one day, they would have drowned.

He knows that then they would not have wanted to go home, because there was more to see, always more to see, and they would have died, sooner or later, having done things they had never dreamed of but never having achieved what they had always wanted.

They were so close to having more than they could have dreamt, so close to losing everything. It scares Ian more than he likes to think; he doesn't dwell on it.

* * *

This is London, England, Earth, 1965, and they're two years out. Some things have changed (the bus fare's gone up, Harold Wilson is the leader of a Labour government), but so have they.

Perhaps this way is better. They don't have to pick up exactly where they left off; walk back into a life that might no longer fit as well as they remembered. They don't have to explain the change in themselves, their relationship, that would otherwise seem to have happened overnight.

They do have to explain their whereabouts. Over and over, they repeat the same story, to the police, to their tearful, bewildered, furious families. They might have convinced themselves of the truth of this understandable, acceptable lie but for the other. They tell a different story to each other when they're alone; the truth is marked on their bodies and he traces the tale, whispering memories of the Aztec goddess, the Roman villa, the Crusades against her skin.

* * *

August 1966 and they've been home for over a year (one year, one month, four days). There are still whispers, but they've both managed to find work for, after all, they are good teachers (even better teachers now, teachers who've learned) and there are the royalties from Barbara's book, so when she suggests that they go to New York for a week or so, he doesn't argue.

(He never could resist her, not when she smiled. He would have given her the universe if she'd wanted it; instead, he gives her everything.)

They visit the Empire State Building on the last day, going up in the lift that takes seven minutes and looking down on 'Ancient' New York, an alien city, in a way. Ian tries not to imagine the streets filled with Daleks, the people fleeing, the tall buildings ruined; Barbara shivers and holds his hand. The TARDIS isn't there, nor was it expected to be (that would be a disaster), but they stand in the spot where it was or will be for as long as they dare.

* * *

It's an ordinary life, a day-by-day life, a linear sequence of events and non-events following on from what came before. They find somewhere to belong and they live their life every moment they can find, counting stars and raising children. Yet there are always certain moments amongst all that make up this life that don't quite fit, that strike a jarring note amongst the others.

* * *

It's a warm summer's day in the park and Barbara is leaning against him, probably dozing. This particular game of amateur cricket isn't the most thrilling, he has to admit. Still, the batsman manages to hit the ball a fair whack and the ball sails far, looking as if to hit Barbara on the head before he catches it. One of the fielders, a young, fair-headed man, jogs over to retrieve it.

"Good catch, Chesterton," the man smiles, his whole face lighting up.

Barbara blinks up at him, disturbed, as the man heads back to the field.

"Do you know him?"

"I don't think so."

"He called you Chesterton," she observes and Ian can't explain why he's suddenly cold in the heat of the afternoon sun.

* * *

They teach more than science and history, to others than their students ("My teachers," this startlingly young man smiles widely, proudly). Some they are directed to, by notes in changing handwriting dropped through the door, and some they stumble upon. Some even come to them.

* * *

"Over there," Barbara says and Ian stops the car.

"She doesn't seem to have arrived yet."

To a tremendous accompaniment, a blue police box appears out of nothingness. A girl exits, turning in the doorway to call back inside. She waves goodbye as it disappears and then turns to smile over at them. They get out and go over to her, the latest in a long line.

"Hello, my name's Ian Chesterton and this is my wife, Barbara. The Doctor said you might want someone to talk to."

* * *

"You're an alien, aren't you?"

"Yes," their new next door neighbour says. "How did you know? I researched your race and chose an appearance inconspicuous for this area."

Ian turns his back and tries to compose himself, but he knows his quaking shoulders give him away. He can feel Barbara's reproving glare as acutely as an elbow in the stomach, but he also knows that she's fighting the upward twitch of her lips.

"It's just that humans," Barbara explains, as kindly as she can, "don't actually have _bright _pink skin."

* * *

"Hello, Ian," Martha says, standing on their doorstep again, nearly forty years later. It's been nothing like that amount of time for her, obviously not. It can't have been more than a few months, a year, for her but something's left shadows in her eyes.  
She takes a deep breath, as if this is a huge undertaking, and continues "Can I talk to you and Barbara, please?"

* * *

It's the journey of a lifetime.


End file.
